German Evangelical Church

The German Evangelical Church ( German: Deutsche Evangelische Kirche ) is the state Protestant church of the Third Reich.

Already in March 1933, a meeting of leaders of land churches ( German: Landeskirchen ) discussed the problem of reforming the German Evangelical Church Union and its transformation into a single Imperial Church, led by the Reich Bishop. On July 11, 1933, the constitution of the German Evangelical Church was adopted. On July 14, 1933, the Reichstag issued a decree establishing the German Evangelical Church, which brought together 29 existing churches. The ideology of “German Christianity” began to be actively introduced in the church. The first Reich Bishop on September 27, 1933 was Ludwig Müller . By July 1934, Commissioner Yeager had unified 22 of the 28 evangelical churches. Attempts to subjugate the churches of Bavaria and Württemberg in the autumn of 1934 ended in scandal. In Dahlem on October 19–20, 1934, the legal separation of the Confessing Church from the Imperial Church was proclaimed, and the radicals declared the Nazi regime to be diabolical.

In July 1935, at the direction of Hitler, the Imperial Ministry for Church Affairs was created under the leadership of ( German Reichsministerium für die Kirchlichen Angelegenheiten ) Hans Curl , a little later the Imperial Committee for Evangelical Church Affairs led by W. Zöllner ( German Wilhelm Zoellner ). In 1937, a wave of persecution from the German state swept against the opposition of the Protestants. Martin Nimeller was arrested. On February 12, 1937, Zölner resigned from the church committee, complaining that his work was being sabotaged by the minister for church affairs. Towards the end of 1937, Dr. Curl persuaded the Hanover Bishop of Marahrens ( German: August Marahrens ) to publicly announce the following:

The National Socialist concept of life is a national and political doctrine that conditions and characterizes the maturity of Germany. If so, it is obligatory for the Christians of Germany [1] .

In the spring of 1938, Bishop Mararens took the last step, ordering all pastors of his diocese to personally swear allegiance to the Führer. In a short time, the vast majority of Protestant clergy officially and morally bound themselves with an oath to obey the dictator's instructions. In February 1939, the land churches of Thuringia, Saxony-Anhalt, and Mecklenburg-Schwerin passed a law that prescribed the removal of Jews from the Protestant church. Their admission to the church was prohibited. An appeal issued on the occasion of the outbreak of World War II stated that the Evangelical Church "at this hour unites with our people in prayers before God for the Führer and Reich, for the entire Wehrmacht and for all who fulfill their duty to their homeland."

Theology was based on the ariization of Christianity and overcoming ^{[ clarify ]} Old Testament . Christ was declared a “Nordic hero” who suffered from the Jews ^[2] . However, the complete unity of nationalism and Christianity could not be achieved, since on July 9, 1941 a Bormann circular was published, which spoke about the incompatibility of the National Socialist and Christian worldviews.